The myth of Canada, its hidden story, is of a contemplative country, a place of inwardness, where people can question the idea of nationhood and ponder what values we wish to see expressed and achieved, and what solitudes of identity and reverie we wish to preserve.

We have to learn how to contact one another over an enormous land space, across five-and-a-half time zones, in what as once a wilderness of scattered settlements, in what is now a sprawl of suburban edge cities and satellite towns. Technology forges connections and disconnections here.

There is, it seems, an unbridgeable chasm between the concerns of a Sri Aurobindo and a Pat Robertson.

Democracies should be a delirium of choices - more options, not fewer; more avenues to travel, not fewer.

May the ability to see many points view keep us gentle.

If you make things sound inoffensively obvious, then it is likely that no one will listen.

Electrical fire and the fire of greed kindle economies. In that flux, nations become digitized commodities on stock-exchange floors and on investors' rating screens. A country becomes a product to be rated for its obedience to paying of deficits and debts.